Maluuba, a startup that grew out of research at the University of Waterloo, launched its Siri-competitor voice-directed personal assistant app for Android devices in the U.K., Ireland and Australia on Monday. The team, headed by CEO Sam Pasupalak and co-founders Kaheer Suleman, G Wu and Joshua Pantony, presented at the TechCrunch Disrupt conference in San Francisco last month and first made the app available in the Google Play app store in Canada and the U.S. on Sept. 11.

The company raised a seed round of $2-million from Samsung Ventures in February after a couple of years of development and they’re spending the next month in California talking to investors and looking to raise a series B round in the range of between $8-million and $10-million, Mr. Pasupalak told me this week.

What’s the selling point of Maluuba versus the iPhone’s Siri? “We don’t talk back to you. We think it’s annoying, the chit chat is annoying. We give you straight results,” Mr. Pasupalak said, adding that you can also use touch and typing to interact with the app.

With more international launches on the horizon, the 22-person company is looking for funding to expand into additional languages and develop more categories (on top of the current 18).

The company has raised venture capital in the past but hasn’t taken on any new funding in several years. It said in a press release it will use the capital injection to advance its commercial operations.

The app is a bit of a passion project for Mr. Palihapitiya, who told me he has several family members who have or are at risk of developing diabetes. He’s a financial backer of Glooko Inc. through his venture capital fund The Social+Capital Partnership and led a US$3.5-million funding round earlier this year.

The company designed a cable it sells separately that lets users connect their blood glucose monitors directly to their iPhone to automatically log readings.

-CD

Sortable’s “decision engine” rebooted

Waterloo, Ont.-based Sortable is a recommendation website that helps gadget fans with online research, allowing them to search based on product type and price.

The startup, which Chris Reid, Alex Black and Mark Feeney founded in 2009, launched Sortable.com in January and unveiled an upgraded version of the site this week that includes comparison screens and a Q&A section with product experts.

Rebellion Media, a digital media company also based in Waterloo, acquired Sortable in July for an undisclosed sum but kept the website going. Sortable says they’re recommending gadgets for more than 4 million people a month.

Among other things, the new system will improve retailers’ ability to interact with customers across mobile, online and in-store channels, the company said.

-CD

Hyperdrive’s first demo day

Waterloo Region’s Communitech is prepping for its Hyperdrive startup accelerator’s first demo day. Fresh from a short trip to New York City, the seven teams are getting ready to present their fledgling businesses to investors next Friday and applications to be among the next batch of teams are due Nov. 1.